One of the most important duties of the priesthood was that of
education,
to which certain buildings were appropriated within the enclosure of the
principal temple. Here the youth of both sexes, of the higher and
middling
orders, were placed at a very tender age. The girls were entrusted to
the
care of priestesses; for women were allowed to exercise sacerdotal
functions,
except those of sacrifice. ^1 In these institutions the boys were
drilled in
the routine of monastic discipline; they decorated the shrines of the
gods
with flowers, fed the sacred fires, and took part in the religious
chants and
festivals. Those in the higher school - the Calmecac, as it was called
- were initiated in their traditionary lore, the mysteries of
hieroglyphics,
the principles of government, and such branches of astronomical and
natural
science as were within the compass of the priesthood. The girls learned
various feminine employments, especially to weave and embroider rich
coverings
for the altars of the gods. Great attention was paid to the moral
discipline
of both sexes. The most perfect decorum prevailed; and offences were
punished
with extreme rigour, in some instances with death itself. Terror, not
love,
was the spring of education with the Aztecs. ^2

[Footnote 1: The Egyptian gods were also served by priestesses. (See
Herodotus, Euterpe, sec. 54.) Tales of scandal similar to those which
the Greeks circulated respecting them, have been told of the Aztec
virgins.
(See Le Noir's dissertation, ap. Antiquites Mexicaines (Paris, 1834),
tom.
ii. p. 7, note.) The early missionaries, credulous enough, certainly,
give
no countenance to such reports; and Father Acosta, on the contrary,
exclaims, "In truth, it is very strange to see that this false opinion
of
religion hath so great force among these young men and maidens of
Mexico,
that they will serve the Divell with so great rigor and austerity, which
many of us doe not in the service of the most high God; the which is a
great shame and confusion." Eng. trans., lib. 5, cap. 16.]

At a suitable age for marrying, or for entering into the world, the
pupils were dismissed, with much ceremony, from the convent, and the
recommendation of the principal often introduced those most competent to
responsible situations in public life. Such was the crafty policy of the
Mexican priests, who, by reserving to themselves the business of
instruction,
were enabled to mould the young and plastic mind according to their own
wills, and to train it early to implicit reverence for religion and its
ministers; a reverence which still maintained its hold on the iron
nature of
the warrior, long after every other vestige of education had been
effaced by
the rough trade to which he was devoted.

To each of the principal temples, lands were annexed for the maintenance
of the priests. These estates were augmented by the policy or devotion
of
successive princes, until, under the last Montezuma, they had swollen to
an
enormous extent, and covered every district of the empire. The priests
took
the management of their property into their own hands; and they seem to
have
treated their tenants with the liberality and indulgence characteristic
of
monastic corporations. Besides the large supplies drawn from this
source,
the religious order was enriched with the first-fruits, and such other
offerings as piety or superstition dictated. The surplus beyond what was
required for the support of the national worship was distributed in alms
among the poor; a duty strenuously prescribed by their moral code. Thus
we
find the same religion inculcating lessons of pure philanthropy, on the
one
hand, and of merciless extermination, as we shall soon see, on the
other.
The inconsistency will not appear incredible to those who are familiar
with
the history of the Roman Catholic Church, in the early ages of the
Inquisition. ^1

[Footnote 1: Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 8, cap. 20, 21. - Camargo,
Hist. de Tlascala, MS. - It is impossible not to be struck with the
great
resemblance, not merely in a few empty forms, but in the whole way of
life,
of the Mexican and Egyptian priesthood. Compare Herodotus (Euterpe,
passim)
and Diodorus (lib. 1, sec. 73, 81). The English reader may consult, for
the
same purpose, Heeren (Hist. Res., vol. v. chap. 2), Wilkinson (Manners
and
Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1837), vol. i. pp. 257-279),
the
last writer especially, - who has contributed, more than all others,
towards
opening to us the interior of the social life of this interesting
people.]

The Mexican temples - teocallis, "houses of God," as they were called ^2
- were very numerous. There were several hundreds in each of the
principal
cities, many of them, doubtless, very humble edifices. They were solid
masses of earth, cased with brick or stone, and in their form somewhat
resembled the pyramidal structures of ancient Egypt. The bases of many
of
them were more than a hundred feet square, and they towered to a still
greater height. They were distributed into four or five stories, each of
smaller dimensions than that below. The ascent was by a flight of steps,
at
an angle of the pyramid, on the outside. This led to a sort of terrace
or
gallery, at the base of the second story, which passed quite round the
building to another flight of stairs, commencing also at the same angle
as
the preceding and directly over it, and leading to a similar terrace; so
that
one had to make the circuit of the temple several times before reaching
the
summit. In some instances the stairway led directly up the centre of the
western face of the building. The top was a broad area, on which were
erected one or two towers, forty or fifty feet high, the sanctuaries in
which
stood the sacred images of the presiding deities. Before these towers
stood
the dreadful stone of sacrifice, and two lofty altars, on which fires
were
kept, as inextinguishable as those in the temple of Vesta. There were
said
to be six hundred of these altars, on smaller buildings within the
enclosure
of the great temple of Mexico, which, with those on the sacred edifices
in
other parts of the city, shed a brilliant illumination over its streets,
through the darkest night. ^3

[Footnote 3: Rel. d'un gentil' huomo, ap. Ramusio, tem. iii. fol. 307.
- Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS. - Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 13. - Gomara,
Cron.,
cap. 80, ap. Barcia, tom. ii. - Toribio, Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte
1,
cap. 4. - Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS. - This last writer, who visited
Mexico
immediately after the Conquest, in 1521, assures us that some of the
smaller
temples, or pyramids, were filled with earth impregnated with
odoriferous
gums and gold dust; the latter sometimes in such quantities as probably
to be
worth a million of castellanos! (Ubi supra.) These were the temples of
Mammon, indeed! But I find no confirmation of such golden reports.]

From the construction of their temples, all religious services were
public. The long processions of priests winding round their massive
sides,
as they rose higher and higher towards the summit, and the dismal rites
of
sacrifice performed there, were all visible from the remotest corners of
the
capital, impressing on the spectator's mind a superstitious veneration
for
the mysteries of his religion, and for the dread ministers by whom they
were
interpreted.

This impression was kept in full force by their numerous festivals.
Every month was consecrated to some protecting deity; and every week,
nay,
almost every day, was set down in their calendar for some appropriate
celebration; so that it is difficult to undertand how the ordinary
business
of life could have been compatible with the exactions of religion. Many
of
their ceremonies were of a light and cheerful complexion, consisting of
the
national songs and dances, in which both sexes joined. Processions were
made
of women and children crowned with garlands and bearing offerings of
fruits,
the ripened maize, or the sweet incense of copal and other odoriferous
gums,
while the altars of the deity were stained with no blood save that of
animals. ^1 These were the peaceful rites derived from their Toltec
predecessors, on which the fierce Aztecs engrafted a superstition too
loathsome to be exhibited in all its nakedness, and one over which I
would
gladly draw a veil altogether, but that it would leave the reader in
ignorance of their most striking institution, and one that had the
greatest
influence in forming the national character.

Human sacrifices were adopted by the Aztecs early in the fourteenth
century, about two hundred years before the Conquest. ^2 Rare at first,
they
became more frequent with the wider extent of their empire; till, at
length,
almost every festival was closed with this cruel abomination. These
religious ceremonials were generally arranged in such a manner as to
afford a
type of the most prominent circumstances in the character or history of
the
deity who was the object of them. A single example will suffice.

[Footnote 2: The traditions of their origin have somewhat of a fabulous
tinge. But, whether true or false, they are equally indicative of
unparalleled ferocity in the people who could be the subject of them.
Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 167, et seq.; also Humboldt
(who
does not appear to doubt them) Vues des Cordilleres, p. 95.]

One of their most important festivals was that in honour of the god
Tezcatlipoca, whose rank was inferior only to that of the Supreme Being.
He
was called "the soul of the world," and supposed to have been its
creator.
He was depicted as a handsome man, endowed with perpetual youth. A year
before the intended sacrifice, a captive, distinguished for his personal
beauty, and without a blemish on his body, was selected to represent
this
deity. Certain tutors took charge of him, and instructed him how to
perform
his new part with becoming grace and dignity. He was arrayed in a
splendid
dress, regaled with incense and with a profusion of sweet-scented
flowers, of
which the ancient Mexicans were as fond as their descendants at the
present
day. When he went abroad, he was attended by a train of the royal pages,
and
as he halted in the streets to play some favourite melody, the crowd
prostrated themselves before him, and did him homage as the
representative of
their good deity. In this way he led an easy, luxurious life, till
within a
month of his sacrifice. Four beautiful girls, bearing the names of the
principal goddesses, were then selected to share the honours of his bed;
and
with them he continued to live in idle dalliance, feasted at the
banquets of
the principal nobles, who paid him all the honours of a divinity.

At length the fatal day of sacrifice arrived. The term of his
short lived glories was at an end. He was stripped of his gaudy apparel,
and
bade adieu to the fair partners of his revelries. One of the royal
barges
transported him across the lake to a temple which rose on its margin,
about a
league from the city. Hither the inhabitants of the capital flocked, to
witness the consummation of the ceremony. As the sad procession wound up
the
sides of the pyramid, the unhappy victim threw away his gay chaplets of
flowers, and broke in pieces the musical instruments with which he had
solaced the hours of captivity. On the summit he was received by six
priests, whose long and matted locks flowed disorderly over their sable
robes, covered with hieroglyphic scrolls of mystic import. They led him
to
the sacrificial stone, a huge block of jasper, with its upper surface
somewhat convex. On this the prisoner was stretched. Five priests
secured
his head and his limbs; while the sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle,
emblematic
of his bloody office, dexterously opened the breast of the wretched
victim
with a sharp razor of itztli, - a volcanic substance, hard as flint, -
and,
inserting his hand in the wound, tore out the palpitating heart. The
minister of death, first holding this up towards the sun, an object of
worship throughout Anahuac, cast it at the feet of the deity to whom the
temple was devoted, while the multitudes below prostrated themselves in
humble adoration. The tragic story of this prisoner was expounded by the
priests as the type of human destiny, which, brilliant in its
commencement,
too often closes in sorrow and disaster. ^1

Such was the form of human sacrifice usually practised by the Aztecs.
It was the same that often met the indignant eyes of the Europeans in
their
progress through the country, and from the dreadful doom of which they
themselves were not exempted. There were, indeed, some occasions when
preliminary tortures, of the most exquisite kind, - with which it is
unnecessary to shock the reader, - were inflicted, but they always
terminated
with the bloody ceremony above described. It should be remarked,
however,
that such tortures were not the spontaneous suggestions of cruelty, as
with
the North American Indians, but were all rigorously prescribed in the
Aztec
ritual, and doubtless were often inflicted with the same compunctious
visitings which a devout familiar of the Holy Office might at times
experience in executing its stern decrees. ^2 Women, as well as the
other
sex, were sometimes reserved for sacrifice. On some occasions,
particularly
in seasons of drought, at the festival of the insatiable Tlaloc, the god
of
rain, children, for the most part infants, were offered up. As they were
borne along in open litters, dressed in their festal robes, and decked
with
the fresh blossoms of spring, they moved the hardest heart to pity,
though
their cries were drowned in the wild chant of the priests, who read in
their
tears a favourable augury for their petition. These innocent victims
were
generally bought by the priests of parents who were poor, but who
stifled the
voice of nature, probably less at the suggestions of poverty than of a
wretched superstition. ^3

[Footnote 2: Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-Espana, lib. 2, cap 10, 29. -
Gomara,
Cron., cap. 219, ap. Barcia, tom ii. - Toribio, Hist. de los Indios,
MS.,
Parte 1, cap. 6-11. - The reader will find a tolerably exact picture of
the
nature of these tortures in the twenty-first canto of the "Inferno." The
fantastic creations of the Florentine poet were nearly realized, at the
very
time he was writing, by the barbarians of an unknown world. One
sacrifice,
of a less revolting character, deserves to be mentioned. The Spaniards
called it the "gladiatorial sacrifice," and it may remind one of the
bloody
games of antiquity. A captive of distinction was sometimes furnished
with
arms, and brought against a number of Mexicans in succession. If he
defeated
them all, as did occasionally happen, he was allowed to escape. If
vanquished, he was dragged to the block and sacrificed in the usual
manner.
The combat was fought on a huge circular stone, before the assembled
capital.
Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-Espana, lib. 2, cap. 21. - Rel. d'un gentil'
huomo,
ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 305.]

The most loathsome part of the story - the manner in which the body of
the sacrificed captive was disposed of - remains yet to be told. It was
delivered to the warrior who had taken him in battle, and by him, after
being
dressed, was served up in an entertainment to his friends. This was not
the
coarse repast of famished cannibals, but a banquet teeming with
delicious
beverages and delicate viands, prepared with art, and attended by both
sexes,
who, as we shall see hereafter, conducted themselves with all the
decorum of
civilized life. Surely, never were refinement and the extreme of
barbarism
brought so closely in contact with each other. ^2

Human sacrifices have been practised by many nations, not excepting the
most polished nations of antiquity; ^3 but never by any, on a scale to
be
compared with those in Anahuac. The amount of victims immolated on its
accursed altars would stagger the faith of the least scrupulous
believer.
Scarcely any author pretends to estimate the yearly sacrifices
throughout the
empire at less than twenty thousand, and some carry the number as high
as
fifty thousand! ^4

[Footnote 3: To say nothing of Egypt, where, notwithstanding the
indications
on the monuments, there is strong reason for doubting it. (Comp.
Herodotus,
Euterpe, sec. 45.) It was of frequent occurrence among the Greeks, as
every
schoolboy knows. In Rome, it was so common as to require to be
interdicted
by an express law, less than a hundred years before the Christian era, -
a
law recorded in a very honest strain of exultation by Pliny (Hist. Nat.,
lib.
30, sec. 3, 4); notwithstanding which, traces of the existence of the
practice may be discerned to a much later period. See, among others,
Horace,
Epod., In Canidiam.]

[Footnote 4: See Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 49. - Bishop
Zumarraga, in a letter written a few years after the Conquest, states
that
20,000 victims were yearly slaughtered in the capital. Torquemada turns
this
into 20,000 infants. (Monarch. Ind., lib. 7, cap. 21.) Herrera,
following
Acosta, says 20,000 victims on a specified day of the year throughout
the
kingdom. (Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 2, cap. 16.) Clavigero, more
cautious,
infers that this number may have been sacrificed annually throughout
Anahuac.
(Ubi supra.) Las Casas, however, in his reply to Sepulveda's assertion,
that
no one who had visited the New World put the number of yearly sacrifices
at
less than 20,000, declares that "this is the estimate of brigands, who
wish
to find an apology for their own atrocities, and that the real number
was not
above 50"! (Euvres, ed. Llorente (Paris, 1822), tom. i. pp. 365, 386.)
Probably the good Bishop's arithmetic here, as in most other instances,
came
more from his heart than his head. With such loose and contradictory
data,
it is clear that any specific number is mere conjecture, undeserving the
name of calculation.]

On great occasions, as the coronation of a king or the consecration of a
temple, the number becomes still more appalling. At the dedication of
the
great temple of Huitzilopochtli, in 1486, the prisoners, who for some
years
had been reserved for the purpose, were drawn from all quarters to the
capital. They were ranged in files, forming a procession nearly two
miles
long. The ceremony consumed several days, and seventy thou and captives
are
said to have perished at the shrine of this terrible deity! But who can
believe that so numerous a body would have suffered themselves to be led
unresistingly like sheep to the slaughter? Or how could their remains,
too
great for consumption in the ordinary way, be disposed of, without
breeding a
pestilence in the capital? Yet the event was of recent date, and is
unequivocally attested by the best-informed historians. ^1 One fact may
be
considered certain. It was customary to preserve the skulls of the
sacrificed in buildings appropriated to the purpose. The companions of
Cortes counted one hundred and thirty-six thousand in one of these
edifices! ^2 Without attempting a precise calculation, therefore, it is
safe
to conclude that thousands were yearly offered up, in the different
cities of
Anahuac, on the bloody altars of the Mexican divinities. ^3

[Footnote 1: I am within bounds. Torquemada states the number, most
precisely, at 72,344 (Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 63); Ixtlilxochitl,
with
equal precision, at 80,400. (Hist. Chich., MS.) Quien sabe? The latter
adds that the captives massacred in the capital, in the course of that
memorable year, exceeded 100,000! (Loc. cit.) One, however, has to read
but
a little way, to find out that the science of numbers - at least where
the
party was not an eye-witness - is anything but an exact science with
these
ancient chroniclers. The Codex Telleriano - Remensis, written some fifty
years after the Conquest, reduces the amount to 20,000. (Antiq. of
Mexico,
vol. i. Pl. 19; vol. vi. p. 141, Eng. note.) Even this hardly warrants
the
Spanish interpreter in calling king Ahuitzotl a man "of a mild and
moderate
disposition," templada y benigna condicion! Ibid., vol. v. p. 49.]

[Footnote 2: Gomara states the number on the authority of two soldiers,
whose
names he gives, who took the trouble to count the grinning horrors in
one of
these Golgothas, where they were so arranged as to produce the most
hideous
effect. The existence of these conservatories is attested by every
writer of
the time.]

[Footnote 3: The "Anonymous Conqueror" assures us, as a fact beyond
dispute,
that the Devil introduced himself into the bodies of the idols, and
persuaded
the silly priests that his only diet was human hearts! It furnishes a
very
satisfactory solution, to his mind, of the frequency of sacrifices in
Mexico.
Rel. d'un gentil' huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 307.]

Indeed, the great object of war, with the Aztecs, was quite as much to
gather victims for their sacrifices as to extend their empire. Hence it
was
that an enemy was never slain in battle, if there were a chance of
taking him
alive. To this circumstance the Spaniards repeatedly owed their
preservation. When Montezuma was asked "why he had suffered the republic
of
Tlascala to maintain her independence on his borders," he replied, "that
she
might furnish him with victims for his gods"! As the supply began to
fail,
the priests, the Dominicans of the New World, bellowed aloud for more,
and
urged on their superstitious sovereign by the denunciations of celestial
wrath. Like the militant churchmen of Christendom in the Middle Ages,
they
mingled themselves in the ranks, and were conspicuous in the thickest of
the
fight, by their hideous aspect and frantic gestures. Strange, that, in
every
country, the most fiendish passions of the human heart have been those
kindled in the name of religion! ^4

[Footnote 4: The Tezcucan priests would fain have persuaded the good
king
Nezahualcoyotl, on occasion of a pestilence, to appease the gods by the
sacrifice of some of his own subjects, instead of his enemies; on the
ground
that they would not only be obtained more easily, but would be fresher
victims, and more acceptable. (Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap.
41.)
This writer mentions a cool arrangement entered into by the allied
monarchs
with the republic of Tlascala and her confederates. A battlefield was
marked
out, on which the troops of the hostile nations were to engage at stated
seasons, and thus supply themselves with subjects for sacrifice. The
victorious party was not to pursue his advantage by invading the other's
territory, and they were to continue, in all other respects, on the most
amicable footing. (Ubi supra.) The historian, who follows in the track
of
the Tezcucan Chronicler, may often find occasion to shelter himself,
like
Ariosto, with

"Mettendolo Turpin, lo metto anch' io."]

The influence of these practices on the Aztec character was as
disastrous as might have been expected. Familiarity with the bloody
rites of
sacrifice steeled the heart against human sympathy, and begat a thirst
for
carnage, like that excited in the Romans by the exhibitions of the
circus.
The perpetual recurrence of ceremonies, in which the people took part,
associated religion with their most intimate concerns, and spread the
gloom
of superstition over the domestic hearth, until the character of the
nation
wore a grave and even melancholy aspect, which belongs to their
descendants
at the present day. The influence of the priesthood, of course, became
unbounded. The sovereign thought himself honoured by being permitted to
assist in the services of the temple. Far from limiting the authority of
the
priests to spiritual matters, he often surrendered his opinion to
theirs,
where they were least competent to give it. It was their opposition that
prevented the final capitulation which would have saved the capital. The
whole nation, from the peasant to the prince, bowed their necks to the
worst
kind of tyranny, that of a blind fanaticism.

In reflecting on the revolting usages recorded in the preceding pages,
one finds it difficult to reconcile their existence with anything like a
regular form of government, or an advance in civilization. ^1 Yet the
Mexicans had many claims to the character of a civilized community. One
may,
perhaps, better understand the anomaly, by reflecting on the condition
of
some of the most polished countries in Europe, in the sixteenth century,
after the establishment of the modern Inquisition, - an institution
which
yearly destroyed its thousands, by a death more painful than the Aztec
sacrifices; which armed the hand of brother against brother, and,
setting its
burning seal upon the lip, did more to stay the march of improvement
than any
other scheme ever devised by human cunning.

[Footnote 1: Don Jose F. Ramirez, the distinguished Mexican scholar, has
made this sentence the text for a disquisition of fifty pages or more,
one
object of which is to show that the existence of human sacrifices is not
irreconcilable with an advance in civilization. This leads him into an
argument of much length, covering a broad range of historical inquiry,
and
displaying much learning as well as a careful consideration of the
subject.
In one respect, however, he has been led into an important error by
misunderstanding the drift of my remarks, where, speaking of
cannibalism, I
say, "It is impossible the people who practise it should make any great
progress in moral or intellectual culture" (p. 41). This observation,
referring solely to cannibalism, the critic cites as if applied by me to
human sacrifices. Whatever force, therefore, his reasoning may have in
respect to the latter, it cannot be admitted to apply to the former. The
distance is wide between human sacrifices and cannibalism; though Senor
Ramirez diminishes this distance by regarding both one and the other
simply
as religious exercises, springing from the devotional principle in our
nature. He enforces his views by a multitude of examples from history,
which show how extensively these revolting usages of the Aztecs - on a
much
less gigantic scale indeed - have been practised by the primitive races
of
the Old World, some of whom, at a later period, made high advances in
civilization. Ramirez, Notas y Esclarecimientos a la Historia del
Conquista
de Mexico del Senor W. Prescott, appended to Navarro's translation.

Note: The practice of eating, or tasting, the victim has been generally
associated with sacrifice, from the idea either of the sacredness of the
offering or of the deity's accepting the soul, the immaterial part, or
the
blood as containing the principle of life, and leaving the flesh to his
worshippers. - Ed.]

Human sacrifice, however cruel, has nothing in it degrading to its
victim. It may be rather said to ennoble him by devoting him to the
gods.
Although so terrible with the Aztecs, it was sometimes voluntarily
embraced
by them, as the most glorious death, and one that opened a sure passage
into
paradise. ^2 The Inquisition, on the other hand, branded its victims
with
infamy in this word, and consigned them to everlasting perdition in the
next.

[Footnote 2: Rel. d'un gentil' huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 307.
- Among other instances is that of Chimalpopoca, third king of Mexico,
who
doomed himself, with a number of his lords, to this death, to wipe off
an
indignity offered him by a brother monarch. (Torquemada, Monarch. Ind.,
lib.
2, cap. 28.) This was the law of honour with the Aztecs.]

One detestable feature of the Aztec superstition, however, sunk it far
below the Christian. This was its cannibalism; though, in truth, the
Mexicans were not cannibals in the coarsest acceptation of the term.
They
did not feed on human flesh merely to gratify a brutish appetite, but in
obedience to their religion. Their repasts were made of the victims
whose
blood had been poured out on the altar of sacrifice. This is a
distinction
worthy of notice. ^1 Still, cannibalism, under any form or whatever
sanction,
cannot but have a fatal influence on the nation addicted to it. It
suggests
ideas so loathsome, so degrading to man, to his spiritual and immortal
nature, that it is impossible the people who practise it should make any
great progress in moral or intellectual culture. The Mexicans furnish no
exception to this remark. The civilization which they possessed
descended
from the Toltecs, a race who never stained their altars, still less
their
banquets, with the blood of man. ^2 All that deserved the name of
science in
Mexico came from this source; and the crumbling ruins of edifices
attributed
to them, still extant in various parts of New Spain, show a decided
superiority in their architecture over that of the later races of
Anahuac.
It is true, the Mexicans made great proficiency in many of the social
and
mechanic arts, in that material culture, - if I may so call it, - the
natural
growth of increasing opulence, which ministers to the gratification of
the
senses. In purely intellectual progress they were behind the Tezcucans,
whose wise sovereigns came into the abominable rites of their neighbours
with
reluctance and practised them on a much more moderate scale. ^3

[Footnote 2: The remark in the text admits of some qualification.
According
to an ancient Tezcucan chronicler, quoted by Senor Ramirez, the Toltecs
celebrated occasionally the worship of the god Tlaloc with human
sacrifices.
The most important of these was the offering up once a year of five or
six
maidens, who were immolated in the usual horrid way of tearing out their
hearts. It does not appear that the Toltecs consummated the sacrifice by
devouring the flesh of the victim. This seems to have been the only
exception
to the blameless character of the Toltec rites. Tlaloc was the oldest
deity
in the Aztec mythology in which he found a suitable place. Yet, as the
knowledge of him was originally derived from the Toltecs, it cannot be
denied
that this people, as Ramirez says, possessed in their peculiar
civilization
the germs of those sanguinary institutions which existed on so appalling
a
scale in Mexico. See Ramirez, Notas y Esclarecimientos, ubi supra.]

[Footnote 3: Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 45, et alibi.]

In this state of things, it was beneficently ordered by Providence that
the land should be delivered over to another race, who would rescue it
from
the brutish superstitions that daily extended wider and wider with
extent of
empire. ^4 The debasing institutions of the Aztecs furnish the best
apology
for their conquest. It is true, the conquerors brought along with them
the
Inquisition. But they also brought Christianity, whose benign radiance
would
still survive when the fierce flames of fanaticism should be
extinguished;
dispelling those dark forms of horror which had so long brooded over the
fair
regions of Anahuac.

[Footnote 4: No doubt the ferocity of character engendered by their
sanguinary rites greatly facilitated their conquests. Machiavelli
attributes
to a similar cause, in part, the military successes of the Romans.
Discorsi
sopra T. Livio, lib. 2, cap. 2.) The same chapter contains some
ingenious
reflections - much more ingenious than candid - on the opposite
tendencies of
Christianity.]

The most important authority in the preceding chapter, and, indeed,
wherever the Aztec religion is concerned, is Bernardino de Sahagun, a
Franciscan friar, contemporary with the Conquest. His great work,
Historia
universal de Nueva-Espana, has been recently printed for the first time.
The
circumstances attending its compilation and subsequent fate form one of
the
most remarkable passages in literary history.

Sahagun was born in a place of the same name, in old Spain. He was
educated at Salamanca, and, having taken the vows of St. Francis, came
over
as a missionary to Mexico in the year 1529. Here he distinguished
himself by
his zeal, the purity of his life, and his unwearied exertions to spread
the
great truths of religion among the natives. He was the guardian of
several
conventual houses, successively, until he relinquished these cares, that
he
might devote himself more unreservedly to the business of preaching, and
of
compiling various works designed to illustrate the antiquities of the
Aztecs.
For these literary labours he found some facilities in the situation
which he
continued to occupy, of reader, or lecturer, in the College of Santa
Cruz, in
the capital.

The "Universal History" was concocted in a singular manner. In order to
secure to it the greatest possible authority, he passed some years in a
Tezcucan town, where he conferred daily with a number of respectable
natives
unacquainted with Castilian. He propounded to them queries, which they,
after deliberation, answered in their usual method of writing, by
hieroglyphical paintings. These he submitted to other natives, who had
been
educated under his own eye in the College of Santa Cruz; and the latter,
after a consultation among themselves, gave a written version, in the
Mexican
tongue, of the hieroglyphics. This process he repeated in another place,
in
some part of Mexico, and subjected the whole to a still further revision
by a
third body in another quarter. He finally arranged the combined results
into
a regular history, in the form it now bears; composing it in the Mexican
language, which he could both write and speak with great accuracy and
elegance, - greater, indeed, than any Spaniard of the time.

The work presented a mass of curious information, that attracted much
attention among his brethren. But they feared its influence in keeping
alive
in the natives a too vivid reminiscence of the very superstitions which
it
was the great object of the Christian clergy to eradicate. Sahagun had
views
more liberal than those of his order, whose blind zeal would willingly
have
annihilated every monument of art and human ingenuity which had not been
produced under the influence of Christianity. They refused to allow him
the
necessary aid to transcribe his papers, which he had been so many years
in
preparing, under the pretext that the expense was too great for their
order
to incur. This occasioned a further delay of several years. What was
worse,
his provincial got possession of his manuscripts, which were soon
scattered
among the different religious houses in the country.

In this forlorn state of his affairs, Sahagun drew up a brief statement
of the nature and contents of his work, and forwarded it to Madrid. It
fell
into the hands of Don Juan de Ovando, president of the Council for the
Indies, who was so much interested in it that he ordered the manuscripts
to
be restored to their author, with the request that he would at once set
about
translating them into Castilian. This was accordingly done. His papers
were
recovered, though not without the menace of ecclesiastical censures; and
the
octogenarian author began the work of translation from the Mexican, in
which
they had been originally written by him thirty years before. He had the
satisfaction to complete the task, arranging the Spanish version in a
parallel column with the original, and adding a vocabulary, explaining
the
difficult Aztec terms and phrases; while the text was supported by the
numerous paintings on which it was founded. In this form, making two
bulky
volumes in folio, it was sent to Madrid. There seemed now to be no
further
reason for postponing its publication, the importance of which could not
be
doubted. But from this moment it disappears; and we hear nothing further
of
it, for more than two centuries, except only as a valuable work, which
had
once existed, and was probably buried in some one of the numerous
cemeteries
of learning in which Spain abounds.

At length, towards the close of the last century, the indefatigable
Munoz succeeded in sinterring the long-lost manuscript from the place
tradition had assigned to it, - the library of a convent at Tolosa, in
Navarre, the northern extremity of Spain. With his usual ardour, he
transcribed the whole work with his own hands, and added it to the
inestimable collection, of which, alas! he was destined not to reap the
full
benefit himself. From this transcript Lord Kingsborough was enabled to
procure the copy which was published in 1830, in the sixth volume of his
magnificent compilation. In it he expresses an honest satisfaction at
being
the first to give Sahagun's work to the world. But in this supposition
he
was mistaken. The very year preceding, an edition of it, with
annotations,
appeared in Mexico, in three volumes octavo. It was prepared by
Bustamante,
- a scholar to whose editorial activity his country is largely indebted,
-
from a copy of the Munoz manuscript which came into his possession. Thus
this remarkable work, which was denied the honours of the press during
the
author's lifetime, after passing into oblivion, reappeared, at the
distance
of nearly three centuries, not in his own country, but in foreign lands
widely remote from each other, and that almost simultaneously. The story
is
extraordinary, though unhappily not so extraordinary in Spain as it
would be
elsewhere.

Sahagun divided his history into twelve books. The first eleven are
occupied with the social institutions of Mexico, and the last with the
Conquest. On the religion of the country he is particularly full. His
great
object evidently was, to give a clear view of its my hology, and of the
burdensome ritual which belonged to it. Religion entered so intimately
into
the most private concerns and usages of the Aztecs, that Sahagun's work
must
be a text-book for every student of their antiquities. Torquemada
availed
himself of a manuscript copy, which fell into his hands before it was
sent to
Spain, to enrich his own pages, - a circumstance more fortunate for his
readers than for Sahagun's reputation, whose work, now that it is
published,
loses much of the originality and interest which would otherwise attach
to
it. In one respect it is invaluable; as presenting a complete collection
of
the various forms of prayer, accommodated to every possible emergency,
in use
by the Mexicans. They are often clothed in dignified and beautiful
language,
showing that sublime speculative tenets are quite compatible with the
most
degrading practices of superstition. It is much to be regretted that we
have
not the eighteen hymns inserted by the author in his book, which would
have
particular interest, as the only specimen of devotional poetry preserved
of
the Aztecs. The hieroglyphical paintings, which accompanied the text,
are
also missing. If they have escaped the hands of fanaticism, both may
reappear at some future day.

Sahagun produced several other works of a religious or philological
character. Some of these were voluminous, but none have been printed. He
live to a very advanced age, closing a life of activity and usefulness,
in
1590, in the capital of Mexico. His remains were followed to the tomb by
a
numerous concourse of his own countrymen, and of the natives, who
lamented in
him the loss of unaffected piety, benevolence, and learning.